The Spring of My Life by Kobayashi Issa

Author:Kobayashi Issa [Issa, Kobayashi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780834828285
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Gomei wrote:

Warning his children

of danger, father deer calls

from a summer hill

And Tōyō wrote:

A child on his back,

old father frog goes out

to join the chorus

Wind in bamboo leaves

made sounds that brought father deer

bounding for home

From out in dark rain

I heard the plaintive crying

of a fawnless deer

The meadowlark sings,

circling the bushes where

her children hide

FOURTEEN

It is often said that the greatest pleasures result in the greatest misery. But why is it that my little child, who’s had no chance to savor even half the world’s pleasures—who should be green as new needles on the eternal pine—why should she be found on her deathbed, puffy with blisters raised by the despicable god of smallpox? How can I, her father, stand by and watch her fade away each day like a perfect flower suddenly ravaged by rain and mud?

Two or three days later, her blisters dried to hard scabs and fell off like dirt softened by melting snow. Encouraged, we made a tiny boat of straw and poured hot saké over it with a prayer and sent it floating downriver in hopes of placating the god of the pox. But our hope and efforts were useless and she grew weaker day by day. Finally, at midsummer, as the morning glory flowers were closing, her eyes closed forever.

Her mother clutched her cold body and wailed. I knew her heartbreak but also knew that tears were useless, that water under the bridge never returns, that scattered flowers are gone forever. And yet nothing I could do would cut the bonds of human love.

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